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Preface
Forensic Science is the application of the natural sciences to matters of the law. It draws
upon principles and methodologies of all the traditional sciences, such as Chemistry,
Physics, Biology and Biochemistry, to aid the reconstruction of events that have
happened and provides factual information that is relevant to the corresponding legal
proceedings. While forensic scientists make use of a wide range of modern technologies
to solve legal questions, Forensic Science is actually an old subject. As early as the Tang
Dynasty (the 7th Century) of Ancient China, Chinese were known to have used
fingerprints as a mean of personal identification in official documents. Also, the Chinese
book Hsi Duan Yu (the washing away of wrongs) published in 1248 (in the Song
Dynasty), which depicted various physical differences between the bodies of people who
died from natural or unnatural causes, has been generally accepted as the world first
documentation of the practice of legal medicine, the early form of Forensic Pathology.
Nevertheless, modern Forensic Science did not take shape until the emergence of modern
science disciplines such as Chemistry, Medicine and Anatomy, some five hundred years
later in the 18th Century Europe. Even then, forensic investigations were mainly focused
on Autopsy (Forensic Pathology), Toxicology and Criminalistics – the examination of
crime-related physical evidences. Nowadays, the scope of Forensic Science has expanded
to encompass fields like Forensic Anthropology, Forensic Entomology, Forensic
Odontology, Fingerprint Examination and DNA Profiling, Firearms and Explosives,
Questioned Document Examination, Computer (Digital) Forensics and Forensic
Engineering. Forensic Science is truly a multi-disciplinary subject.
Attitude of the scientific and law enforcement communities towards forensic science
education has also changed over the years. In earlier days, principles and techniques of
forensic examinations were being regarded as trade-secrets of law enforcement. They
were deemed better to be kept away from public knowledge so as to avoid their falling
into the wrong hands and the cultivation of “smart” criminals. With the dissemination,
sometimes with much exaggeration, of their roles in crime-solving by the widely popular
Crime Scene Investigations (CSI) series of TV dramas all over the world, our hesitation
in educating the general public about Forensic Science has been slowly diminished. In
fact, Forensic Science is inherently an ideal media for science education. It allows people
to understand how various scientific principles, techniques and instrumentations can be
applied to solve different real-life problems. It allows people to appreciate how results
and data obtained from different tests and observations can be interpreted, linked and
converted into meaningful information. It also allows people to realize the importance of
logical and critical thinking, the application of common senses, the needs to pay attention
to small details, and the upholding of professional ethics in the conduction of scientific
investigations. Another attractive feature of using Forensic Science as an educational tool
is the diversity of levels of scientific knowledge involved. Even in real-life crime scene
investigations and forensics caseworks, techniques ranging from simple dimension
measurements and the use of chemical dyes to advanced DNA profiling and electron
microscopy have to be used. Students at different levels of education can appreciate
Forensic Science and can find various aspects of it that are relevant to their subject
matters.
This science pull-out programme is a problem-based teaching and learning package on
Forensic Science. The 10 lessons provide a rather broad coverage of the highly
diversified disciplines of Forensic Science, stretching from simple pattern recognition for
fingerprints; shoeprints; bite-marks and hand-writings, to advanced biochemical analysis
of DNA profiles and the application of Physics and Insect Biology to specific forensic
tasks such as the reconstruction of vehicle accidents and the estimation of time of death.
Learning experiences offered by this programme are going to be quite different from
those of ordinary science subjects. It requires active participation of students and
challenges them with problems in which answers can only be found by careful
observation, measurement and experimentation on hypotheses that have been critically
formulated based on known facts and the exercise of common senses and logics. There
are also plenty of links and literature references for self-motivated follow-up learning.
The final CSI project demands students to apply all that they have learnt, from the
programme itself as well as from their self-studies, to design realistic mock crime scenes
of their own for educational purposes. By the end of this programme, students should be
able to build up their own understanding of the three ultimate goals of Forensic Science:
(1) identification of evidences; (2) individualization of evidences; and (3) reconstruction
of past events. In fact, the objective of this programme goes beyond that. Through these
exciting activities and challenges, we hope to stimulate our students’ interest in science
and technology as a whole and help them to realize that doing science and technology is
interesting, exciting, stylish and extremely useful to our modern and sophisticated society.
Dr. Michael H. W. Lam
Associate Professor
Department of Biology & Chemistry
City University of Hong Kong
16 November 2010